Today, Senator Thad Cochran announced that the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) was awarded the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Telehealth Center of Excellence. Morgan Reed, Executive Director of ACT | The App Association’s Connected Health Initiative shared the following praise for UMMC:

“We commend the UMMC Center for Telehealth for this well-deserved recognition. For more than a decade, the Center for Telehealth has been serving remote and underserved communities with their forward-thinking approach to telehealth. Telehealth solutions are not only vital to the treatment of chronic illnesses, but they also provide innovative means to improve patient outcomes and lower medical costs. We hope UMMC’s award serves as a signal for medical centers across the country to use telehealth to bring effective, low cost, high result healthcare solutions to the Americans who need them most.”

The Telehealth Center of Excellence is awarded to a public telehealth program that is financially self-sustaining, has a high volume of telehealth visits, and services medically underserved areas with a prevalence of chronic disease. In a state that leads the nation in heart disease, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, UMMC has been a champion for telehealth throughout Mississippi. We applaud the HRSA and Senator Cochran for recognizing UMMC as a Telehealth Center of Excellence.

Here are a few reasons why we believe UMMC is setting a strong example for telehealth solutions across the United States.

Bringing telehealth to scale: Since 2003, UMMC has treated more than 500,000 patients in more than 200 locations across Mississippi by bringing telehealth solutions into patients’ homes and healthcare possibilities.

Addressing patients in need: Currently 53 of Mississippi’s 82 counties are more than a 40-minute drive from specialty care. Telehealth enables doctors to examine and treat patients remotely and in real time, using online streaming video technology, wearable devices, and interactive tools.

Variety of telehealth services: Today, UMMC offers more than 35 medical and telehealth services, and helps to bring remote monitoring to patients in their homes, without sacrificing quality of care or driving up healthcare costs.

Promoting preventative healthcare: Once in the UMMC Remote Patient Monitoring Program, a patient with Type 2 diabetes, asthma, or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) would receive a tablet for at-home health monitoring and online check-ins with clinical specialists to proactively address small healthcare woes before they become serious medical crises.

Providing real results: The first 100 patients enrolled in UMMC’s Mississippi Telehealth Diabetes Network experienced an average 1.7 percent reduction in the A1C test used to determine an average glucose level, experienced zero hospitalizations or emergency room visits, and collectively saved $339,184 in healthcare costs.

…And savings: Cost analyses have predicted that if 20 percent of Mississippi’s diabetic population was enrolled in the Mississippi Telehealth Diabetes Network it would bring $189 million in Medicaid savings to the state of Mississippi every year.